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Dealing with Change. Managing Change

Here’s a question for you to think about. Are you managing change in your life or is change managing your life?

It’s one or the other because this much is certain: “things” in your life are changing.

I’m a bit astonished at the number of people I run into who are still almost completely resistant to change. They expend tremendous amounts of energy fighting it rather then trying to figure out how to use it to their advantage.

I understand why people may be a little reluctant to fully embrace change. Every change brings with it the possibility of something worse. To some people the risk of “worse” is just not worth the possibility of something better.

People also fear failure. Changing your job, or changing your career or changing almost anything has the possibility of ending in complete failure and nobody wants that.

Few people really embrace the unknown and every change brings with it a set of “unknowns.” No matter how well you’ve thought out the change there is likely to be something that you didn’t plan on. That’s more risk.

Change also tells us that time is passing. We’re getting older. For the life of me I can’t find a single corner store with the penny candy that I so enjoyed as a kid. Now that I can buy as much penny candy as I want, without even asking my parents permission, there is no penny candy to be found. I can’t believe anyone would call that progress.

So, many people agree that for the most part, change is bad.

But that’s because most people just habitually focus on the negative aspects of change. (Yes, I said most people and the fact that it’s sad doesn’t mean it isn’t true) We’ve all had poor experiences with change and it seems the bad outcomes are far easier to remember than the more common good outcomes.

Stop and think for a minute about the last ten years of your life. So many things have changed that it’s hard to remember them all. Just 10 years ago the iPhone existed only in the developmental labs of Apple. Today it’s hard for many people to think of life without a Smartphone in their pocket.

It’s seems like half the people I know are now wearing some sort of fitness tracker. Just 5 years ago people would have said “a fitness what?”

Some of us are old enough to remember getting the long distance bill. For those of you not old enough to remember that, it’s the extra bill from the telephone company for calling someone with a different area code. For those of you who are really young the area code is the first three digits of your phone number.

My how things have changed…. so many improvements we have forgotten most of them…and more things continue to change everyday.

Today the gig economy is growing almost by the minute. A recent study by Intuit predicted that by 2020, 40 percent of American workers would be independent contractors. That’s an incredible pace of change that will affect the workplace for all Americans, not just those participating in the gig economy but anyone who works for a living.

The point is simple: everything changes with time. Everything!

Accept change as a positive in your life, it means you’re still learning and growing. It means you’re willing to try new things and stretch yourself to reach your true potential. Accepting changes proves to yourself and others that you are willing to flex a bit as you receive new information and ideas.

Pretty much everyone wants “things” to be better but many of those same people don’t want change in their lives.

There is no “better” without change. If you really really want better then don’t wait for change to happen, make change happen in a way that “better” is ensured.

The only way to beat change is to not fight it. Make it work for you and you’ll find it cooperates a whole lot more.

I’m a big fan of change. I’m particularly fond of change that doesn’t have any impact on me. I know so many things and people that need to change I couldn’t possibly list them all. But as for me and my little world, well, we’re just fine the way we are.

I really do think that way sometimes and virtually every time I do I slow my progress towards ultimate success. To me ultimate success is all about being better today than you were yesterday. No matter how good you are at something if you don’t continually try to get better eventually you’ll get worse.

Winston Churchill is quoted often on the subject of change and he said about it, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” He knew that improvement was impossible without change. I see people all the time who profess to want something “different” or “better” yet refuse to accept any change in their life.

There really isn’t any way to get better or different without something or someone changing.

Many of the people reading this committed to some type of change at the beginning of 2016. You likely called it a “resolution.” We’re around 40% of the way through 2016 and it’s not a bad time to stop for a moment to take stock of how your change is going.

So, how you doing?

What have you started doing and perhaps even more importantly, what have you stopped doing. If you’re a busy person it’s very likely that you think you’re too busy to start a new habit. You’re really not, after all, there is not a person alive who has more time than you. Rather than a shortage of time what you most likely have is a shortage of prioritization skills or maybe just a shortage of priorities.

You might not like hearing that but it is what it is.

Change, at least change in the right direction, just as often means stopping something as it does starting something. Often the hardest part about starting something new is stopping something old so that you’ll have time for the new. It is simply a question of priorities… and prioritization.

As you move into the second half of 2016 set your sights on what truly matters to you. Those priorities can still guide you to a successful year and even more successful years in the future.

I’m amazed by people who say they love change. I don’t know if they are serious, if they are just looking on the bright side, or they are just denying the existence of change. Maybe, I suppose it’s possible, maybe they actually do love change.

I’m actually okay with change so long as it doesn’t effect me personally. I know of many things and many more people who need to change. Thankfully, I’m not one of them. I know there are people who think I do need to change but it’s actually their thinking that needs to change, not me.

I suspect most people are like me, I have no real interest in changing or dealing with change and if the world would just sit still for a minute I’d be just fine with that.

But the world won’t sit still.

That’s why it’s so important that like change or not, we learn how to manage it and even use it to our benefit. Here’s the technical reason so many people struggle with change: they equate change with loss.

Every time something changes in your life you lose something, even if you initiate the change. You accept a new job and you “lose” many of the relationships that existed with the old one. You buy a new house and you miss some of your old neighbors. You may not even be aware of the “loss” but it affects you anyway.

One key to successfully managing change is to acknowledge the loss. We need to realize that it’s okay to feel a little distress with the loss, it’s normal and it doesn’t make you any less effective as a person or a leader.

Once you acknowledge the loss you can replace it. There is something in the “change” which will replace the loss, something new, something that might take getting used to, but the void of the loss will be filled.

Once the loss is acknowledged and replaced it becomes much easier to move forward. Change experts (which I am certainly not) would even say to celebrate the passing of old into new as a way of getting closure out the loss and embrace the new.

Here’s a fact that all successful people know: you don’t have to like change to make it work for you. You do need to understand it, you do need to accept it, you do need to realize that it’s going to happen whether you want it to or not.

The real question is whether it will happen to you or for you. That’s a choice and it’s a choice only you can make.